Phase I may be Christmas gift

October 18, 2010

By

Eric Mann

COMING SOON ... An artist's rendition of what the new northside addition to Adams Central School will look like by December was the focus of Jeremy Ringger (left) of Weigand Construction in Fort Wayne, prime contractor, and Barry Ehinger, the AC school board's hired overseer of a overall $10 million construction and remodeling project. (Photo by Eric Mann)

By Christmas, the northern expansion of Adams Central School at Monroe is planned to be finished and ready for use, so the rest of a $10 million construction and remodeling project can be completed by the fall of 2011.
The north end enlargement will include offices for the high school and middle school, a few classrooms, restrooms, and a hallway.
At the October meeting of the AC school board, board members received a report about the job from Jeremy Ringger, the 1996 AC graduate who is vice-president of Weigand Construction at Fort Wayne, prime contractor on the project, and from Barry Ehinger, a former AC board member who is now the board's overseer of the work.
They noted that there will be less cabinet space required in the large middle school science area to be built on the south end of the structure, so the money saved can be applied to other aspects or alternates as the project moves through next year.
The MS science lab will be surrounded by classrooms for easy accessibility by students and teachers.
One alternate mentioned by AC Superintendent Mike Pettibone is linking two restrooms on the west side of the building to a sewer south of the school, diverting those restrooms from an old and defective sewer that has been under the school for perhaps 60 years.
The board also discussed the elementary playground, which is being disrupted by the construction on the north side. When the work is done, there will be less grass, but more mulch on which kids can play and a Boy Scout-constructed gazebo will be repositioned in that area, too.